Halden Electric
Grace Under Pressure
Home On The Range

There's always a need for artists dedicated to keep roots-oriented rock music alive, and Grace Under Pressure is a debut rocketing Halden Electric into the sky of this genre here in Norway. This is music for Sunday afternoons, on the mellow and melancholic side, but in a good way. If you remember what Danko, Fjeld & Andersen were doing in the 90's, Halden Electric is right up that alley, with a slightly updated sound, adding some scattered use of distortion here & there, along with banjos and steels. "Later" somehow reminds me of the groove of Sister Rain, by the way, but in sum there is little here to scare away the more traditional roots/country fans.

Halden Electric is not a band, Grace Under Pressure is a solo effort from Anders Svendsen, who is doing almost everything himself, save some help with playing drums & a few instruments in addition to backing vocals. Otherwise the album is recorded, arranged and produced by Svendsen, and he's done a great job with it too. He has even released the album on his own Home On The Range label, so it's all very close to a DIY product. Svendsen also has a capable voice, but if I were to pick on something, I would suggest that the singing & pronounciation is perhaps not on par with the song-writing. On the other hand the song-writing is close to perfect, not many fillers here I promise you, most songs are both memorable and hummable. If they were written and sung in Norwegian, this album would probably be regarded an instant national treasure.

By the way, Mr. Svendsen is indeed the same Svendsen that is currently writing reviews for Luna Kafe. If Grace Under Pressure gets as much attention as it deserves, we can kiss him goodbye.

Copyright © 2009 Knut Tore Breivik